Leg-Press competition. Help me train!

[john917v]

Hey, everybody, Gold's is having several competitions, one of which is the leg press. I signed up for it. You have to press your weight, as many times as you can. Currently, mine is 265. I practiced last night, and I did it 60 times. What suggestions do you have for me to get ready for it, it's on this coming August 19th.
TIA
-John

[Andrew.cook]

I have a lot of ideas about how I would train for it, but in all honesty you have two weeks and other than sitting down a couple more times to try out some high rep work, I don't know that there is much you can accomplish in that time frame.

Most of the fight will be mental. I would estimate that the average person is going to fail/quit a good 5-10 reps before their body is close to giving out.

[Ross86]

Just be careful in the next couple of weeks. Don't do too much and strain your CNS or wear yourself down. And like AC suggested, do some high rep work a time or two or three before the competition...good luck!

[EricT]

More likely to strain his back by counting reps and not paying attention.

[Andrew.cook]

I don't know what kind of CNS damage high rep leg sled is going to do. I mean, it isn't like doing a 60 rep 265lb squat... in fact, I would say that it is a good bit easier than even doing a 60 rep bodyweight squat.

I think that Eric is referring to the rather poor design of many leg presses which actually promote back rounding (maybe the tester thought this was more comfortable? Who knows). Anyway, I would just do my best to keep my hips down and tight. You don't want any weird inch worm crap with your lumbar region. Not even under that light load.

[EricT]

Yeah, that's pretty much what I was saying. Just an off-hand comment really. The CNS thing is a bit misunderstood and has become a "catchall" for overtraining in general.

But yeah, leg press plus back rounding is what I was talking about. Plus the danger of paying so much attention to quantity that you neglect quality. Not that in order to train for endurance you don't have to pay attention to quantity! But having two weeks to get ready and launching half-cocked into a prepratory phase could be a recipe for ...something. Neither here nor their really, just pay attention.

For the lower back you have probably a good 2 or 3 degree range of "safety", more or less, depending on the specific area. But a guy doing mucho reps on a leg sled where the butt is coming up, say, 40 to 50% of the time is more likely to hurt himself in an acute way (not to mention the long-haul damage) than, for instance, an accomplished lifter who lets his lower back round out a couple of degrees during a "max" lift.

[Ross86]

Good point AC & E. After reading about CNS strain, I just became a little less stupid in regards to the subject. That really doesn't apply and it really is a "catchall" as you mentioned, Eric. Kind of aggravates me that I thought that. I don't know where I got the idea. I'll just blame it on BB.com

[EricT]

Nah, I don't look at it that way, honestly. If 90% of the "experts" throw around the term "cns" to mean anything from volume overtraining (endocrine effects, etc) to 1 rep maxes everyday for 2 weeks, then you can't really exactly call people ignorant for using the term too loosely. I certainly used to use it thusly. Maybe a subject for another thread. I think I spoke on it a bit somewhere but maybe not...

It can be a complicated subject but it gets more complicated the more kinds of things you do. Whereas for the average gym goer, even the lifter, it's probably a bit overused.

[Ross86]

I think I remember you mentioning it a long time ago. I didn't understand under what conditions it would occur...which lead to the mis characterization that I've used in the past.

[EricT]

I've misunderstood it and mischaracterised it in the past a great deal based on what I had read, etc...it's not a well understood subject. I'll start something on it. It really comes down to deloads and what is appropriate or desirable when, imo...